Locals may get chance to spend high school years on college
campus
Gilroy – Students who don’t fit the traditional high school mold may soon have an alternative.
Gilroy Unified School District and Gavilan College officials will spend the next few months deciding if a nationwide program called the Early College High School Initiative would work in Gilroy. The joint venture will be funded through a $10,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
GUSD Assistant Superintendent Jacki Horejs and Jane Harmon, Gavilan Community College vice president of instruction and student services, are heading the probing initiative. In mid-February or March, they will present their findings to the GUSD and Gavilan boards.
Gavilan and GUSD officials still have to research exactly how the program would be implemented in Gilroy and if the alternative school will work here. Harmon said during the planning stage a group will visit nearby community campuses that offer an early college program.
If ECHS becomes a reality in Gilroy, high school students will have three alternatives: private school, public school or ECHS, a sort of hybrid high school program wherein students would take both college and high school classes but on the Gavilan College campus.
Unlike many middle college programs which are only offered to juniors and seniors, students spend four years in ECHS. Students would have the chance to earn their associate’s degree by the time they graduate from the program.
Both the school district and the community college would receive funding for the students enrolled in the high school.
Harmon became familiar with the program in the 1970s when La Guardia Middle College opened on the campus of La Guardia Community College in New York. Harmon continued to work in middle college programs during while living on the East Coast.
That’s why Harmon was pleasantly surprised when an outsider suggested bringing one to Gilroy.
“I’m so excited,” she said. “This has been a dream of mine to be involved in this.”
Jeff Thompson is the man who may help Harmon realize her dream. The director of the Foundation for California Community Colleges’ Early College High School Initiative program said Gilroy is an ideal location for an ECHS.
“Gilroy clearly has the demographics given the strong Latino population in the area,” Thompson said.
The early college program is not designed solely for minorities but it is aimed at students, such as Hispanics, who are traditionally underrepresented at colleges and universities.
“The idea is we’ve got to create a culture around going to college,” Thompson said. “We have to really affect the norms, values and behaviors and have higher aspirations in college completion.”
That objective appears to be reflected in the make-up of Contra Costa Middle College.
Of the 268 students enrolled at middle college on the campus of Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo, about 40 percent are Hispanic, 23 percent Asian, 23 percent black, 10 percent Filipino and 4 percent white.
Principal Gary Carlone said they’ve tweaked the 16-year-old institution in the last couple of years and are now more focused on seeing students complete their associate’s degree or accumulate enough units to transfer to a four-year university, by the time they graduate.
The school is a four-year program so the majority of students are accepted in the ninth grade. And throughout the years the process has become more and more competitive, said Carlone, pointing out that he receives between 350 and 400 applications a year.
Carlone said they look for “high potential, underperforming students.” Students interested in the program have to demonstrate that they’re mature enough to take classes on a college campus. Both the student and parent must complete an essay component of the application.
Some of the questions asked are: “Why do you think you’re not performing at your academic potential?” “What changes are you willing to make?” and “What are you looking for that a traditional high school doesn’t offer?”
“It seems that they’re looking for an environment where they can aim toward college and excel,” said Carlone.
For more information about ECHS, go to www.earlycolleges.org
